1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, and a computer program product.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus, such as a digital copying machine, comes into wide use as an integral instrument in an office environment or the like. In recent years, from the viewpoint of reduction in cost or environmental protection, there are numerous efforts to reduce power in such an image forming apparatus.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-170560 discloses an image forming apparatus in which, if an abnormal state occurs, the image forming apparatus stores information on operation conditions at the time when the abnormal state occurs in a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM) and transitions to abnormality energy-saving mode in which less power is consumed, then the presence/absence of an abnormal state release operation to release the abnormal state is monitored, and finally if the abnormal state release operation is performed, the operation mode returns to normal operation mode from the abnormality energy-saving mode on the basis of the operation condition information stored in the NVRAM.
However, in the image forming apparatus disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2004-170560, if an abnormality, such as a sheet jam, sheet exhaustion, or toner exhaustion, occurs in a plotter unit, the operation mode transitions to the abnormality energy-saving mode to inhibit electrical conduction to the entire engine control unit, so that not only the plotter unit but also a scanning unit are stopped so as to achieve reduction in power consumption. For this reason, when an abnormality occurs in the plotter unit while the scanning unit is scanning a document, original conveying in the scanning unit is stopped on the way, which makes it necessary for an operator to release an abnormal state in the plotter unit, for example, to remove jam and to then remove the document that has been stopped on the way. In particular, when a wide and long document is scanned, or the like, there is a problem in that it takes a lot of efforts to remove the document.
The present invention has been made in view of the above-described situation, and there is a need to provide an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, and a computer program product capable of saving labor of removing an original while achieving reduction in power consumption.